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by bienenstich
Summary: One late afternoon, they meet again. Natsume's dad x Natsume's mom. Possible OOC? [GA New Year's Party entry]


This was my contribution to the "Gakuen Alice New Years Party". Head over to tumblr and check out its other awesome contributions!

After finally remembering my password, I can also publish it here. Have fun. Leave a comment?

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The fire burned even hotter and it nearly had reached the right temperature.

It wasn't as easy to summon the fire as it used to be when I was still ten or eleven and I had just gotten the hang of it.

A Fire Alice was precious, even when it was just mediocre (okay, not even that) like my own.

I wished I could strip it off me though. Even if it was the most worthless Alice possible, it was still an Alice.

Special. In need of protection. Best kept in seclusion and under tight control.

This life I didn't want still didn't stop controlling me and my surroundings and wouldn't anytime soon. I still had a few years left until graduation. And who knows what came after that.

'_I can't even decide on my own hobbies,_' I mused as I put my hands into the burning fire and added some last minute changes to my pathetic excuse of a clay mug.

'_There's no way I will never see them again after graduation…_'

I had always been good with my hands, but working on clay artwork hasn't exactly been the way I envisioned my free time. Still, it was better than my attempts at forging last year.

'_Learned that the hard way…_'

Peculiarly formed mugs and vases could at least be called art, my supervising teacher decided.

They would leave me alone with this level of skill. Just laying low and staying underneath the line of mediocre, a one-star with no aspirations, was just fine with me.

And pottery clay training still had one tremendous advantage. I could feel myself getting more and more excited just thinking about it.

It was late afternoon, when the last students left the art room in a hurry to get ready before leaving for Central Town for a fun Friday night. I stayed behind anxiously and hastened my pace in cleaning only as the last student jumped right through the wall in a desperate effort to catch up with her friends.

Some of the pressure that had built up since this morning left my shoulders and I picked up a vase and two small clay cats (or at least that's what they were supposed to be… one looked more like a racoon than the nice little housecat I wanted it to be), I had finished this morning, moved to the other side of the room and changed aprons.

_This_ was my favourite part.

Alice Academy, the prestigious school for the 'gifted', could afford one hell of a paint collection. I had the not-so-free choice between whatever kind of paints, colours or brushes I wanted to use. My supervising teacher could and would have my head, had he any idea that I was spending more time thinking about subtle patters and dark colours than practicing my Alice skills during my daily time at the oven. It was hard enough to convince the principal that any further experiment to try to boost my Alice through healthy training sessions could only be fatal to the school's property. Why I was pushing my luck to this extend, even I couldn't understand. I was a good student. I always did what they told me to do- It was the best way to get through this hell as fast as possible. And this extracurricular activity was the first step to appearing on the Academy's radar, but…

Painting was like a long needed fresh breath of air.

All the bad stuff was but a low buzz, easily forgotten, in a small part of my brain, when the bright colours and all those different patters and pictures filled my head. I didn't dislike clay pottery, there was some freedom in there, but my true passion was definitely painting.

And with a clear picture of what the cats should look like, I started indulging myself in a few minutes of peace and quiet. Snow white kittens playing around a blue-green vase, filled with flowers.

'You're too obvious.' remarked a clear voice that I knew all too well.

I could still catch the cat, but the brush slipped from my fingers.

Something in the air had changed.

She though hadn't changed at all since that memorial bus ride to Central Town. It may have been only a normal trip for her, but for him it was the worst and the best ride ever.

She saved me once and I was hooked forever.

Kaoru.

She shouldn't appear so tall, leaning against the door (_'How do you look so cool doing it, when it sounded so stupid?'_). She was smaller than him, but it seemed that she was taller than any person he knew. And she was pretty. So, so pretty. Prettier than any image in his head.

Louder, brighter and more intense than any picture he could imagine.

'Your face,' she clarified. I must have looked like the biggest dork on campus.

She stepped closer and that something in the air must have eaten all the oxygen.

'_I am the biggest fishy dork on the campus._'

So, so pretty.

Her eyes were the deepest kind of red I've ever seen. Probably the most beautiful colour on the planet. And that said a lot. I had seen every colour the Academy could afford (approved by the government, for heaven's sake!).

And her hair was dark. Even darker against her pale skin. It fell around her face as she leaned closer to inspect my cat. I felt even more stupid.

She narrowed her eyes and I wanted the ground to swallow me up and be done with it.

'And your pictures…,'there was a small laugh in her voice.

She picked up the brush and pushed it into my open palm. I tried not to think about the skin contact (skin!), but that was not possible. It was over, before I could accidentally set the next chair on fire.

So, so pretty.

She straightened herself and pointed towards my vase. It was still uncoloured, but I had tried to carve small flowers into its neck yesterday. I couldn't remember why I felt the need to put flowers on a fricking _flower_ vase. Wasn't it obvious enough?!

'When you draw, you look way too happy. Clearly, this isn't what the Academy would want you to do during Alice classes. Or after them, for that matter.'

She picked up the vase and scrutinized it by checking every corner. 'And this patter… flowers… You're not kidding anybody. What you want to do, I mean, your feelings- I can see them clear as day in you pictures and on your face.'

She put it back and I felt a little cold inside.

That was probably one of those moments in which you break out in cold sweat, because you were found out doing something forbidden (I already perfected the dear caught in headlights look). But it was more important that I felt less cold when she carefully placed it next to a cat- she didn't drop it!

'You're too honest and too naïve, if you think that this won't go unnoticed.'

Okay, back to the blizzard.

Swallow me up, ground, now. Now!

'But, I don't dislike this part of you.'

She gave me a wink before she disappeared through the door and I could feel how my cheeks, my ears, my neck reached the temperature of my fire.

I looked at my vase. The hand, which held my brush, felt hot. It felt _hot_.

Make that two tremendous advantages!

I reached for the brush again, a clear image right in my head. A wonderful crimson vase filled with flowers and accessorized by two small cats playing in front of it.

Bright, bold, beautiful and full of life.


End file.
